Hotels/Restaurants/Casinos

Russia shuts 12 McDonald’s restaurants as tensions rise

OlgaRazumovskaya

Bloomberg

MOSCOW--The number of McDonald’s Corp.’s restaurants that are either being shut down or inspected by the Russian consumer regulator has grown steadily over the past several days as tensions between Moscow and the West intensified after Kiev accused Russia of invading Ukraine.

By Friday a total of 12 McDonald’s
MCD, -1.86%
restaurants had been shut down by Rospotrebnadzor, Russia’s state consumer regulator, over alleged sanitary violations--up from eight on Thursday--and an unprecedented 100 outlets were being inspected, up from several last week, the company said in a statement Friday.

“We are studying the essence of claims laid to us to determine the actions necessary to open the restaurants for our customers as soon as possible,” McDonald’s said.

The closure of some of those restaurants, including Russia’s first iconic McDonald’s restaurant that opened in Pushkin Square in 1990, was upheld by Russian courts Wednesday.

Over the past two days Rospotrebnadzor added restaurants in Serpukhov near Moscow, Krasnodar in southern Russia and Sochi, also in the south of the country, the company said.

Ironically, McDonald’s was one of the sponsors of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games held in Sochi in February. Ahead of the Games, the fast-food company, along with other Olympic sponsors, drew criticism from advocates of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community for indirectly supporting an anti-LGBT Russian law. The company didn’t withdraw any of its advertising during the sporting event, however, saying it wanted to support the athletes and was a proponent of human-rights activism.

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